RENAUD ADAM - JORAN PROOT
Bound to last. Five centuries of bookbindings in the Cultura Fonds Library. From Eik, Bélica, 2024.
In 4th (25 x 20 cm.) 136 pp, includes Half title and Title page. Paperback publisher binding.
Bound to last. Five centuries of bindings in the Cultura Fonds Library. Such is the title of this study carried out by Renaud Adam, from the University of Liège, and Joran Proot, from Cultura Fond, and with the collaboration of Diane E. Booton. They write that “Nowadays, all copies of a book generally look the same. This has not been the case. Until the appearance of the so-called publisher's bindings at the end of the 18th century, books circulated in commerce in loose sheets, without binding. In retail, books passed across the counter with simple stitching or in rudimentary paper covers, unless the customer desired otherwise. Already in the Middle Ages, the buyer decided the type of binding of his manuscript. When most books in the West were printed with movable type starting in the mid-15th century, this remained the case for a long time. Some buyers wanted a simple cover of decorated paper, while others preferred durable parchment, high-quality leather, or luxurious morocco. In theory everything was possible, but in practice tradition and culture, economic conditions and material factors played an important role.”
Fifty volumes from the Biblioteca Cultura Fonds -formed in Belgium by Baron Piet Van Waeyengerge [See more] - testify to five hundred years of bindings, from a singular version in printed leather, a copy of Tractatus de meditatione cordis, de oratione et valore eius, expositio super septem psalmos poenitentiales, by Joannes Gerson, printed in Cologne around 1470, to a 1901 “Liberty” binding by the English collector Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, on a 1556 manuscript titled Armonial de la Toison d'Or. Each of them described in detail, both in its physical characteristics - that is, number of pages, dimensions and year of publication of the bound volume - as well as the qualities of the binding and historical details of the style and the particular copy; all illustrated with magnificent full-page color images.